Using “Sacrifice” to Self-Justify Disobedience

When Saul disobeyed the Lord’s commands through Samuel to devote everything and everyone of Amalek to destruction (1 Samuel 15) it didn’t bode well for him—in fact, it cost him his kingship.

1 Sam 15:13-15   And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord." And Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?" Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction."

Saul gave all the right “religious” sounding reasons for sparing the king and the best of the livestock, saying, basically, “It’s for a sacrifice to the Lord.” The problem in Saul’s situation is that God didn’t ask him for that sacrifice—He had told him to devote it ALL to destruction! (How often, I wonder, do we justify our own plans and desires that God never led us to by saying that it’s for the Lord, or that we will glorify Him in it, or that it will enable us to do more for Him? Instead of letting God lead us, we set out on our own and try and drag Him and His blessing behind us.)

Samuel countered Saul with a piercing commentary for us all to take note of (a passage later quoted from in Hebrews). In 1 Sam 15:22-23 Samuel says, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king."

How easy it can be to consciously, or subconsciously, excuse, or move past, or minimize in our mind, our disobedience (doing wrong things, or not doing right things) because we are doing “religious” things that make us feel it is OK, or balanced, or better—or that even convince us we are pleasing God? We may go to church, or a Bible study, or tithe, or write blogs, or pastor churches, or serve on church boards, or ???, but if we are doing things that are in disobedience to God, then our “sacrifices” are missing the point.

God asks for obedience. Jesus said that if we love Him we will obey Him. Obedience is a mark of a surrendered heart to God and a love for God. It is much easier for us, often, to put the check in the offering box, or to go to church, or to do some religious “thing” than it is to obey God—and yet we can fool ourselves, and even others, by doing the religious and missing the obedience.

James 4:17 tells us: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. This is a powerful verse! Obedience to God is not just not doing bad things, it is also doing the right things. We can be disobeying God by doing that which is wrong, or by not doing that which is right (this could be as simple as not visiting someone when the Spirit nudges us to!). We fool ourselves into thinking we are good Christians (or at least neutral) because we aren’t doing anything bad (and maybe we are even doing church things), but we might be disobeying Him by not doing the service, the loving, the forgiving, the laying down of ourselves, the giving, the seeking His plans and not our own, etc., that He has asked of us. God, it would seem through Saul’s example, is saying, “Yeah, I see that tithe check and that church attendance . . . but what about what I asked you to do?”

We must be careful, I believe, to not let our religious “stuff” numb us or fool us into thinking we are doing that which pleases God. I believe all of that pleases Him, but if it isn’t on top of basic obedience, then it would seem we’ve missed that which He calls us to, and that which is greater in His heart. The words of Jesus to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23 come to mind, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

Praise God we are forgiven! Praise God for His love and mercy! Praise God that He lives in us and through us and works out His plan for us through surrendered lives! But, let’s be careful to never use that as a safety zone to sin or seeking our own ways and pleasures and plans—and to never fool ourselves that God is joyous about our religious “stuff” if we’ve missed the basic heart of God and the obedience that comes from love.

God bless you all. Thanks for reading and being a part of my life.   —Erick

Knee Jerk Sin

I was reading in 1 Samuel this morning and I was struck by some of the final words of Samuel to the people. He is really angry at them because they sought a human king instead of God as their king. He said, "Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king" (1 Samuel 12:17). He does what he threatens, but then a few lines later he says, despite his anger at them, "Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way" (1 Samuel 12:23).

Here's a guy really steamed at the people (righteously so, they have rejected God) but he doesn't have a knee jerk reaction to their sin that causes him to sin. I am reminded of David after he took care of Nabal's men and sheep in the wilderness and then Nabal mocks him and blows him off and doesn't give anything back to him (1 Samuel 25). David is angry (again, righteously so) and arms up his men and sets off to kill every male of Nabal's household, saying, "Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good" (1 Samuel 25:21).

Hearing David and his men are coming, Nabal's beautiful wife Abigail meets him and stops him, imploring for his mercy and saying, ". . . my lord [David] shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself . . ." (1 Samuel 25:31). David sees that she is speaking truth and turns aside, saying to her, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand! For as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male" (1 Sam 25:32-34).

David was hours away from knee jerk sin—from going from being right to being wrong—from letting another person's sin pull him into sin.This, and many other instances in the Bible and in my life and the news around us make me wonder, "How many times do we, starting out right, become wrong because we react to another's sin with our own sin?"

It is so easy to start out right and to become in sin ourselves because we react to another's sin. My question for your reflection this morning is, "Are you in any way being pulled in to sin (in your thoughts, actions, lack of love, lack of prayer, the way you treat another) because, though you were right, you are now starting to be wrong in reaction to their wrong?" If you are then that person is controlling you—you are allowing them to make you wrong.

Samuel wouldn't let their sin or his anger stop him from praying for them and instructing them. David wouldn't let Nabal's arrogance and ingratitude and lack of returning David's kindness cause him to take vengeance into his own hands (interestingly, Nabal fell dead a short time later and David married the beautiful and wise Abigail!).

It is a good question to ask the Holy Spirit to help reveal in us, "Where am I in danger of sinning because, though I am right, I am starting to react wrongly to another's sin?" God bless you all, and thanks for reading and being a part of my life.   —Erick